afartiell Uttttieraits Slihtarg FROM THE BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY COLLECTED BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY Cornell University Library HV6211 .D88 1895 V.7 Celebrated crimes 3 1924 032 586 947 olin Cornell University Library The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032586947 CELEBRATED CRIMES VOLUME VII IMPERIAL JAPAN LIBRARY EDITION LIMITED TO FIVE HUNDRED COPIES THIS COPY IS NO._ /(d^ aiejeaniire JUumos CELEBRATED CRIMES TRANSLATED BY I. G. BURNHAM ILLUSTRATED WITH PHOTOGRAVURES Original Drawings By de los Rios, Prodhomme WAGREz, Etc. VOLUME Vll PHILADELPHIA GEORGE BARRIE, PUBLISHER ^ 7(p(p(i i^ COPYRIGHTED 1895, BY G. B. CONTENTS OF VOL. VII. PAGE, La Maequise de Brinvilliers 1 Vaninka 107 La Constantin 183 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. VOL. VII. LA MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS. After Drawings by Jacques Wagrez. The ]\Iarquise de Brinvilliers Poisoning Her Father, M. de Dreux d'Aubray Fronts. PAGE. The Death of the Chevalier Gaudin de Sainte- Croix 28 The Execution of the Marquise de Brinvilliers . .102 VANINKA. After Drawings by Jacques Wagrez. Fedor RomayofF, Concealed in a Chest in Vaninka's Room, Dies of Suffocation 158 Vaninka, After Drugging Ivan and His Compan- ions, Sets Fire to the Red Inn 176 LA CONSTANTIN. After Drawings by Jacques Wagrez. The Due de Vitry Finds the Chevalier de Moranges in the Room of His Inamorata, Angelique- Louise de Guerchi 226 Commander de Jars and Treasurer Jeannin Trapped by Quennebert 238 La Marquise de Brinvilliers. Vol. VII.—1. CELEBRATED CRIMES. LA MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS. 1676. On a certain beautiful evening in the autumn of the year 1665, a considerable crowd was collected upon that part of the Pont Neuf, which leads down into Rue Dauphine. The object which formed its centre, and upon which its attention was fixed, was a tightly closed carriage, which a police officer was doing his utmost to force open, while two of the four sergeants who were with him held the horses, and the other two the coach- man, who had turned a deaf ear to the summons to halt, and had made no other reply to it than to whip his horses into a gallop. The struggle had been in progress some time when one of the doors was thrown suddenly and violently open, and a young officer, in the uniform of a captain of cavalry, leaped out upon the pavement, clos- ing the door behind him at the same instant, but not so quickly that those who were nearest had not time to see a woman sitting back in the corner, wrapped in a cloak, and closely veiled, who seemed from the great pains she took to conceal her features to be deeply interested in re- maining unknown. " Monsieur," said the young man, addressing the offi- cer in a haughty and imperious tone, " I presume that (3) 4 LA MAEQUISE DE BRINVILLIEES. your business is with me alone, unless you have blun- dered, and I beg you to inform me by what authority you stopped the carriage in which I was riding ; now that I am no longer inside, I demand that you instruct your men to let the coachman drive on." " In the first place," rejoined the officer, quite uncon- cerned by this assumption of lordliness, and signing to the sergeants not to relax their hold upon horses or driver, " be kind enough to answer my questions." " I am listening," said the young man, evidently mak- ing a great efibrt to retain his self-possession. " "Are you the Chevalier Gaudin de Sainte-Croix ? " I am." " " Captain in the Tracy regiment ? " Yes, Monsieur." " Then I arrest you in the king's name." " " By what authority ? " By the authority of this lettre de cachet." The chevalier ran his eye rapidly over the paper which was handed him, and as he recognized the signature of the minister of police at the first glance, he seemed thenceforth to think only of the woman who was still in the carriage, and recurred to the first demand he had made. " " Very good. Monsieur," he said ; but this leUre de cachet contains no name but mine, and I tell you again it gives you no right to expose my companion to the gaze of the multitude as you have done. I beg you, therefore, to order your sergeants to allow the carriage to go its way, and then you can take me where you choose ; I am ready to follow you." This request apparently seemed reasonable to the offi- cer, for he made a sign to his people to release the driver and horses ; whereupon the latter, as if they had ;: LA MAEQUISE DE BEINVILLIERS. 5 simply been awaiting permission to be gone, plunged into the crowd, which drew aside for them, and bore the woman for whose safety the prisoner seemed so con- cerned rapidly away. Sainte-Croix kept his word, and made no resistance he followed his guide through the crowd whose attention was once more concentrated upon him. At the comer of the Quai d'Horloge a sergeant called a hired cab which was standing just out of sight, and the prisoner entered it with the same haughty and contemptuous ex- pression which his features had retained throughout the scene we have described. The official took his seat be- side him, two of the sergeants got up behind, and the others, probably in obedience to orders from their supe- rior, walked away after giving the driver the direction " " To the Bastille ! We crave the reader's patience for a moment while we make him somewhat better acquainted with that one of the characters of our narrative to whom he has been first introduced. Chevalier Gaudin de Sainte-Croix, whose birth was shrouded in uncertainty, was said by some to be the natural son of a great nobleman, while others would have it that he was born of humble parents, but could not endure the thought of his obscure birth, and so pre- ferred the gilded dishonor of illegitimacy, and to pass for what he was not. The only point as to which there certainty was any was that he was born at Montauban ; at the time of which we are writing he was a captain in the Tracy regiment. Sainte-Croix, in 1665, was some twenty-eight to thirty years of age ; he was a handsome young man with a good-humored, intellectual face, a jovial boon compan- ion, and a gallant soldier ; it was his constant pleasure : 6 lA MARQUISE DE BEINVILLIEES. to give pleasure to others, and he was as ready to give his time to any charitable or religious object, as to take part in a drunken orgie ; he was very susceptible to the tender passion, and went mad with jealousy, at a mo- ment's warning, even of a mere courtesan, if she had made a favorable impression upon him. He was as ex- travagant as any prince and yet his extravagance was unsupported by any known source of income. Lastly, he was extremely sensitive to fancied slights, as are all those who are living above their proper level, and are forever discerning a purpose to insult them in the slightest allusion to their origin. Now let us see what combination of circumstances had brought him to the point at which we take him up. In 1660, or about that time, Sainte-Croix, while with the army became acquainted with the Marquis de Brin- villiers, commanding the Normandy regiment. As they were of almost the same age, were embarked on the same career, and were alike in many of their good and bad qualities, the simple acquaintance soon ripened into sin- cere friendship; so that, when he returned from the field, the Marquis de Brinvilliers presented Sainte-Croix to his wife, and took him into his house. This intimacy soon led to the ordinary result. Madame la Marquise de Brinvilliers was then about twenty-eight in 1651, nine years before, she had married the Marquis de Brinvilliers, who possessed an income of thirty thou- sand livres ; she brought him as her marriage portion two hundred thousand livres, exclusive of what she hoped some day to inherit. Her name was Marie Magdelaine ; she had two brothers and a sister, and her father, M. de Dreux d'Aubray, was civil lieutenant at the Chatelet. At twenty-eight years of age, the Marquise de LA MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIEE8. 7 Brinvilliers' beauty was in its prime : she was small of stature, but her figure was perfect ; her face was well- filled out, and her profile exceedingly delicate and grace- ful in outline ; her features, which owed their perfect regularity in great measure to the fact that they were never stirred by any emotion, seemed like the features of a statue, endowed by some magic power with fleeting life, and one might well have mistaken for the serenity of a spotless soul, the cold and heartless impassibility, which was in reality but a mask to hide her remorse. Sainte-Croix and the marchioness fell in love with each other at first sight, and soon became lover and mistress. So far as the marquis was concerned, whether he was a believer in the approved conjugal philosophy, without which no one was in fashion at that period, or whether his time was so occupied with his own pleasures, that he had no leisure to take note of what was going on almost under his eyes, certain it is that no feeling of jealousy led him to throw any obstacles in the way of this intimacy.